Digging through hardpan

Digging through hardpan is never fun. Too bad I didn't think of renting a demolition hammer. Oh well. Instead, I hired a laborer to swing a pick axe. Poor guy. Hope he didn't break his back. He looked strong, though. This is on the side of the driveway opposite the new tree location, which was luckily much easier to dig. Emerald Gaiety Euonymus will be planted here.

The floor of the trench is practically waterproof, so to improve drainage I installed a perforated pipe — sometimes called a french drain. I sloped mine gradually, running it under the driveway as a solid pipe, then perforated again to a sump bucket that discharges to the street. The direction of flow to the sump is secondary as a backup measure because I also sloped the floor of the trench. The important parts of a subsurface drain like this is to wrap all the drain rock with soil fabric, not just the pipe, the holes should face downward and it should NOT tie into the roof runoff pipes because of potential backflow. Sloping is not absolutely necessary, but the outlet must always be clear. The type of drain fabric should be the large sheets — available at Truitt and White (but not Home Depot). And rigid pipes are far better than corrugated ones.